LOS ANGELES – Proclaiming both sides are motivated by the potential effects of a worst-case scenario, NBA commissioner David Stern painted a hopeful picture of renewed labor talks between players and owners Saturday during All-Star Weekend festivities at Staples Center.

The sides used this weekend to meet face to face, a summit Stern summed up as the potential end to rhetoric.

“It’s time to start negotiating,” said Stern, who hopes Friday’s session serves as a catalyst for more serious talks in the coming weeks.

The current collective bargaining agreement expires June 30, and if a new deal isn’t in place by then the league could encounter its first work stoppage since 1999.

That is a threat Stern declared the greatest incentive of all to work toward an agreement, a sentiment he believes is shared by owners and players alike.

“What gives me hope is the fact a lockout would have huge negative consequences on everybody,” Stern said. “And that is what gives me the hope and the belief that we are going to knock ourselves out to get it done.”

At the core of the battle is the owners’ insistence that the current agreement no longer is practical or profitable and a new model must be created, one in which players are compensated at a much lower percent than they are now in order to stop financial bleeding by too many teams.

“We want a sustainable business model that enables 30 teams to be able to compete for more championships (and) that fairly compensates our union members,” Stern said.”

Prior to Friday, the players were reluctant to even acknowledge the bleak economic numbers being portrayed by owners, but Stern said they are coming around on that front.

“There is no disagreement on the numbers. There is a little intramural disagreement about certain items,” Stern said. “We sort of both agreed the numbers are what they are and it doesn’t pay to argue about them anymore. They are real.

“They can be argued about in terms of whether they are `X’ or X-minus a little bit, but the numbers are real and the losses are real and the need from our perspective is a different business model.”

The players, according to Stern, are moving beyond whether there is a problem and now seem focused on finding an agreeable solution.

“The union’s position was, `Let’s not argue about the numbers,’ ” Stern said. ” `Let’s just go and negotiate about the outcome.’ And that worked for us that was good to hear. Now, you can read a lot into that if you like, or not, but we are off that argument because it doesn’t get us any place.”

Despite some of the progress made, Stern conceded there is a huge gap dividing players and owners, much like the divide in 1999 that resulted in a prolonged work stoppage.

But he hoped the lessons learned 12 years ago motivates both sides to get a deal done in time to avoid a similar fate.

“We’re smarter now,” he said. “We had a lockout. We know what it feels like.”

Vincent Bonsignore is an NFL columnist for the Southern California News Group. Having covered the Los Angeles sports scene for more than two decades, Bonsignore has emerged as one of the leading voices on the Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers, the NFL and NFL relocation.

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